The Status of Workers in EU Free Movement Law: A Difficult Balance Between Equality and Economic Integration

European Union citizenship has been criticised as an essentially unequal project because it does not allow everybody to fully exercise the main right attached to it, i.e. free movement across Europe, and does not allow complete equal treatment in access to social benefits for those who are economically inactive. As a result, citizenship rights can only be enjoyed by those who can afford mobility. This contribution focusses on the personal scope of free movement of workers as the precedent of Union citizenship. The argument put forward is that the definition of worker, which constitutes the main demarcation line between economically active and inactive persons, is already marked by discrimination and arbitrariness in the identification of who is a worker under EU law. It is submitted that the establishment of Union citizenship has not solved these problems, since economic activity is still a deal breaker in the distribution of rights. Finally, this chapter argues that the inequalities that free movement of workers entails are intertwined with its double nature as economic freedom and a fundamental right and that this double nature should lead to questioning the very divide between economic activity and inactivity. Rethinking such a rift triggers questions as to the relationship between economic free movement and Union citizenship more generally.